Friday, December 4, 2009

I haven't done a weekly wrap up in a long while. I guess I was bogged down with getting our taxes done for the year ('08) - and then we had house guests, and then we had a wonderful wedding to attend in New Orleans and then it was Thanksgiving.

My kids with their cousins enjoying New Orleans

My brother and his beautiful bride

Well, finally things have calmed down and are a little bit back to normal or at least normal for us. Anyways, this school week started on Tuesday. I decided to give the kids an extra day off. This is definitely a wonderful perk of homeschooling. We stuck with the basics this week and all went pretty smooth. I decided to rearrange our schedule (a never-ending endeavor!). We are now doing math, science, grammar and reading (for Ashley, my 1st grader) first thing in the morning. They are the most important subjects and if we can get them accomplished first thing then the rest of the day is cake. Doing things this way made the week run much smoother and we accomplished a lot each day before noon. It also helped that we all got up fairly early (for us) and began school by 8:30.

We were able to get in a nature study this week. I really love the challenges posted on the Handbook of Nature Study blog. We are way behind on our challenges. We completed the Autumn Series: Weather Study. We took a nature walk around our neighborhood but I would really like to find a place close by that is more wooded and more condusive to seeing more nature.

We have been trying to play a game about 3x's a week called Rummy Roots. This is a card game that introduces Latin/Greek roots. It is a fun and fast-paced, challenging game that is a great way to build vocabulary, and alphabetical skills by exploring the Greek and Latin roots of our English language. Not sure why but we have such a riot playing it. We are all pretty goofy so maybe that is why we are having fun but it was definitely a highlight of our week. We are only just beginning (we started the week before Thanksgiving) so we have only been playing with one deck but we have been keeping a running total of our points. When one person reaches one hundred which will be next week then we will add a new deck. By the way, I was in the lead but Tyler pulled ahead today and Samantha doesn't have a chance!

This week Tyler has just finished studying about the Vikings, Samantha is in the midsts of the early 1800's studyiong the growth of America and Ashley just read about the very first Thanksgiving. I will be so thankful when we start doing history together next year because this year has been pretty crazy. If anyone out there has a recommendation for a history curriculum that I can use for a 13, 11 and 7 year old please let me know all about it!

We got our tree up this week and our nativity but I have a few things still to do. This weekend I hope to set out our Christmas village and put out my snowman collection (something a yankee girl living in the south cannot do without! lol). Plus, I want to put away all the plastic tubs that hold all the decorations back up in the attic. We have a second tree we usually put out but I am just not in the mood this year so I've decide not to. Also, I have been going through my decorations and getting rid of the items I really do not care for.

Tonight, Jeff and I were able to go to our favorite Chinese restaurant and enjoy an evening out together. Our church had a parent's night out and I am very grateful to our pastor and his wife for this wonderful gift. We rarely get a night out together. Tyler is almost 13 so he is old enough to babysit but my next kid is 10 and they fight like a cat and dog. So parent's night out at church was definitely peace of mind. Plus I have an unnatural fear that someone might choke and so they are not allowed to eat while we are gone. I know, I am crazy. I will probably have Tyler go to a babysitting course sometime this year even though he thinks it is just for girls.

Also, good news, Jeff got a night job working at a local grocery store. It definitely is not replacing the income he normaly makes building houses but it will help slow the drain on our savings and since it is a night job he can still be available during the day when some jobs (praying) come in next year.